Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a cowl structure.
Related Art
A cowl structure in which vehicle top side is formed as an open cross-sectional area, and in which vehicle bottom side is formed as a closed cross-sectional area is commonly known as a cowl structure that is provided with a cowl panel that supports a bottom end portion of a windshield. As a cowl structure of this type, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2011-37288 describes a cowl structure including a cowl panel, a dash upper panel that is bonded to the cowl panel, and a dash lower panel that is bonded to a vehicle bottom side of the dash upper panel and is formed as a closed cross-sectional structure. Here, an open cross-sectional area is formed by the cowl panel and the dash upper panel. In addition, an air introduction port (i.e., an air intake port) that is used to introduce air into an air-conditioning unit (i.e., an air-conditioning device) is also formed in the dash upper panel.
However, in the technology described in the aforementioned documentation, if an air intake port that is sufficiently large to guarantee a satisfactory air conditioning performance (i.e., the air-conditioner air flow and the like) is formed in the dash upper panel, then the size of the open cross-sectional area also increases. Because of this, the distance in the vehicle up-down direction from the windshield to the closed cross-sectional area is lengthened, and there is room for improvement from the viewpoint of improving the support rigidity for the windshield.